Mull Theatre’s production of Peter Arnott’s play Unspotted Snow is being staged in Cove Burgh Hall on Saturday in the final performance of its four-week Scottish tour.
Arnott has woven together two scenarios – the tragic story of John Franklin’s Arctic expedition, and the follow-up years later when the explorer John Rae reported his findings of the expedition’s fate to the British Admiralty in London.
But Rae had shown that aspirations of Empire were useless in the face of harsh natural conditions. He learned much about surviving in the Arctic from the Inuit. He travelled with them, dressed in their clothing, and slept in igloos.
The play starts at 8pm and doors open at 7.15 – tickets cost £10 and are available from outlets and online.
There will be a cash bar and raffle.
Intriguingly, while Unspotted Snow has been touring Scotland, an expedition to retrace Rae’s 650 km journey in the Arctic has been in progress.
The Arctic Return Expedition team set out from Naujaat in the central Canadian Arctic on March 30 to retrace the route taken by John Rae in 1854.
The aim was to raise awareness, pay tribute, and honour John Rae, considered one of the greatest Arctic explorers of all time.
After a journey involving blizzards, high winds and extreme temperatures with wind chill down to -50 degrees, the Expedition was successfully completed on April 27, when the team reached Point de la Guiche, the point at which Rae determined that King William Island was in fact an island, and therefore discovering the missing link in the first navigable North West Passage.
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